


Once Was Lost

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: 07-09, M/M, ficanon, house/wilson fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-25
Updated: 2007-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson tells House that he has decided take a leave of absence and go to Europe with Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Was Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I used the "first sentence from the top of page ten, twenty, thirty, etc." to inspire the sections, using Crow Lake, by Mary Lawson. Thanks to roga for the beta, to leiascully, daemonluna, cryptictac, and asynca for listening to me think, and eryslash for helping me with the Italian.

**Once Was Lost**

i._ There are several photographs of Bo at that time._

Florence is achingly beautiful.

Wilson doesn't take pictures.

He remembers the musty smell of old boxes of slides, the careful work of his father's hands. Beach trips, hikes, family reunions, all constructed out of rows of tiny translucent photographs mounted in shabby cardstock. A vacation wasn't complete without his father's Nikon on its strap around his neck, without endless poses with an arm around each brother. Skinny elbows poking skinnier ribs, fingers making rabbit ears, grins turning to grimaces while his father waited on the light.

And, later, the _click-shush_ of the projector, the remote always in his father's hand. Brothers sprawled on the floor, below the warm-bright column of dusty light, while his father narrated last summer or the one before. His mother keeps those boxes, still, as if hoping one day they won't need to hide away the good memories for fear of the bad.

But Wilson's not a tourist, and this is not a vacation, despite what he told Cuddy when he requested the leave. There are museums at first; he guides Grace's wheelchair, hands steady on the grips, pausing when she draws in her breath at each new wonder. He watches her face, more than the art, and insists that they leave when her energy starts to fade. Once or twice, there are restaurants, lit with weak candles and cooled by spring breezes. Wilson eats alone, and pretends that Grace isn't trembling as much as the flames.

The hotel gives way to the hospice, then. Wilson feels at home and homesick all at once. _Heartsick_, he thinks, for no reason he can name.

Even the hospice is beautiful, and so peaceful. The limestone walls and courtyards glow brilliantly, painfully white when Wilson escapes outside, breathless and panicky like he never once has been, in years of saying _yes, this is all, this ending; you are dying_.

Grace dies on a Wednesday. Wilson knows before the nurse, but he allows her to tell him, in liquid accented English. Grace's hand is cool and soft, when he lays it on her breast. The arrangements have already been made, and he's not asked to sign any paperwork, not yet. Grace feels no more absent than she was a moment before, or a day. Nothing hurts more, or matters more.

He steps outside, into the orange-dark sunset. The dome of the Duomo is silhouetted in the distance, the sun a perfect bronze fire beyond it.

All Wilson can think is how goddamn glad he is that he didn't take pictures.

* * *

ii._ Memories._

He empties his pockets of the detritus of vacation: museum ticket stubs, bus passes, much folded pamphlets that mark the must-see monuments in bold type. He touches them, these small bits of dog-eared paper that outline three weeks of his life. Three weeks when, maybe for the first time in his life, he hasn't done the right thing. If this isn't the right thing. If it matters whose standards he's racing to catch up with.

Grace is gone. It's alien, that thought. He keeps remembering her chalk-white skin, the fragile bones of her wrists and forearms, the pain-clouded colour of her eyes. She's gone. The paperwork is done, and Wilson was never here in any official capacity. Grace has family who will meet the return flight that she always knew she wouldn't live to see.

And it's James who's left in Florence, learning how to be alone.

His first honeymoon was a weekend in Kennebunkport, in a small bed-and-breakfast whose walls creaked, that smelled damply of salt. James chased Ellie into bed, and followed after her, laughing at how astonishingly adult he felt. The two of them, young enough to be in love, doing everything right the first time; and for the first time, James kissed her knowing it meant something more.

On Sunday, they bundled up in cableknit sweaters, slickers, and woolen scarves, and went down the shore arm in arm. The sky was overcast and the sand pockmarked with rain, the Atlantic choppy and cold as steel. Ellie leaned close and James talked about the small apartment they'd have in the City while he was at Columbia, about the home they'd have when they could afford it. When he'd graduate, when they'd have kids--always when, never if. And somehow the fog rolled in around them before they noticed, and they were lost in formless grey, faster than James ever could have expected.

He and Bonnie didn't have any better plan, when the time arrived; they'd spent too long playing the game of "Where do you want to go?" "I'm not sure; where do _you_ want to go?" In the end, they visited her family, because Bonnie was uncertain and nervous when she asked, and James had to take her hands in his and say, _Of course I don't mind_ in order to make her smile without trembling. It was a two-week tour of all the relatives who wanted to wish them well and ask when there would be grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews. He turned the questions away with a smile and a shrug.

James listened to the trail of Bonnie's dreams at night. James followed the line of her fingers brushing across his chest. But it was Dr. Wilson who suggested that Uncle Albert have that lump looked at by his family doctor, and that Bonnie's mother should drag her father to the cardiologist even though he swore he was as healthy as a horse. At the end of two weeks, Wilson found that he only remembered the cautious manners of a houseguest. How to offer his help with a smile, how to tidy as though he wasn't sure he had permission. How to make love quietly, for fear of disturbing the nobody on the other side of the wall. They were finally home, but he'd forgotten how to be James.

Julie wanted to go to Acapulco, three weeks of white sand and drinks with umbrellas. Wilson agreed, and they flew first class because this was a gift to themselves. A wall of heat hit them the moment they stepped off the plane. They spent most of their time hiding behind sunglasses, and floating past each other in the resort pool.

At night, thunderstorms swept down out of the mountains, brilliant with lightning, but so muggy and stifling that they stripped off the bed's covers and slept naked. "James, it's too hot," Julie said, when he moved to curl an arm around her and draw her closer. It was, but he wanted to touch her anyway. He settled for one hand on her hip, for the brush of her toes against his shin. This third time, Wilson contented himself tiredly with the small touches she allowed.

When they returned to Princeton, he imagined a circle drawn around her that required an invitation to enter. As far as across the room, when they're entertaining; as close as the heat of her skin, when they're in bed together. Wilson waited, but didn't touch. Eventually she found someone else who would; eventually, he realized he didn't care enough to try.

It's different with Grace. This isn't a honeymoon.

Was never, he reminds himself, as he and Grace were never lovers.

When Grace took his hand, and brought it to her breast; when he leaned down and placed delicate, exploring kisses on her dry lips; when they were together.

When, and never if.

_This is_, his body reminds him, _how you love a woman_. (They are not lovers.) _This is how you touch softly, to save her any hurt; this is how you touch firmly, because she needs you, now, as this is ending._ Her hands are butterfly-light. She smiles, a thin, bright, inquiring challenge. He touches her, and it is only touching. _This is how you bring pleasure_, he remembers. (Is it the same pleasure, even if it's based on a lie?) His hands are large and warm against her belly, her hips. He needs the lubricant he brought, because she pulls him close and wants, but she is dry. Fingers first, and then he rolls on a condom.

"James," Grace says, "James--"

He is James, he is learning to be this man. He studies Grace, he touches her; it's almost dark out. They've left Princeton behind. It's twelve thousand miles away and he can feel every inch. He's as far away from Grace as that, half a world distant. He slides into her, warm now, careful, controlled. "Good," she whispers, when he finishes, although she didn't come. After he's cleaned himself, he reaches for her, and her body falls into his. It's like recalling a memory he thought was buried. He's reaching for something and it isn't her. He reaches--

But Grace is gone, and whatever memories she brought back to him are gone with her.

* * *

iii._ I was fortunate in being too young to understand the implications of those calls._

There's a small placard propped next to the phone that explains international dialling.

Wilson sits on the bed, legs extended in front of him, head tipped back to the wall. He breathes.

Hello, House, he says.

No, that's not what happens.

The phone rings until the machine picks up, and then he hears House's annoyed voice, nasal over the transatlantic connection: _I'm probably trapped under something heavy. Or I don't care. Either way I'm not returning your call._

And Wilson laughs, a breath, before he says, I know you're there.

He pauses, but he doesn't expect House to pick up the phone. I know you're upset, he says. But I couldn't let her go alone. She needed me...

It's too easy to imagine House's response to that, the argument spiraling out of control until House slams his phone down and Wilson's left holding his receiver, with all that distance stretching between them. After House hangs up, Wilson says, I loved her, and House's silence tells him it's a lie.

He tries to push away the headache that's building behind his eyes. No, that won't work.

Again:

Wilson ignores the message and barely waits for the beep before he says, I needed a break. I thought--with Julie leaving, and...

House never wants to hear about Julie. Instead he'll hear _I needed a break from you,_ and even if it's true he'll resent it. He'll be hurt. He'll worry it for months or years, only bringing it up again to throw in Wilson's face when he thinks he's safe again, when he thinks he's figured out what it really means.

So, no.

Once more:

House picks up halfway through the fourth ring, while Wilson's waiting for the machine to kick in. He doesn't speak; he breathes slow and calm and Wilson waits until he's found its measure and its rhythm, until he can match House's breaths with his own.

He says, I didn't know where to go.

I wanted to be...myself. I wanted to know who that was, when I wasn't around you. I wanted to know who I was, before I got too involved, before you...

But of course House has hung up already.

House would never answer in the first place, in fact. And House would never be silent if he did.

And Wilson knows that, so Wilson never calls.

* * *

 

iv._ And they kept clearing the land, a bit at a time._

James walks into the late spring heat and tilts his head back to the soft wash of blue sky. Warmth touches his shoulders and chest through the white button-down shirt he's wearing, open at the collar. The sun-dazzle makes him blink, until there's an overlay of afterimages when he looks into the shadows.

There's nowhere he needs to be, nowhere he needs to go. There's no one waiting for him, no one at all.

Florence surrounds him, all history and whispers. James wanders from Strozzi to Uffizi, choosing turns randomly. When he finds a bridge over the Arno, he crosses, pausing midway to rest his hands on the carved stone balustrade. It's cold, even in the sun. He faces downstream and watches the slow flood of brown water passing away.

He remembers the moment twelve years ago when House's glare first turned from dismissive to evaluating.

He remembers a year after that, when House cracked a grin, and then laughed, because of him; he remembers the startling flash of House's dimple, and how he caught his breath to see it.

He remembers twenty different arguments that still rankle and fifty insults that still hurt.

He remembers that there were times when he was living with House when he would go out on the stoop, closing the door softly behind him. He balanced on the edge of the step, its angle digging into the soles of his feet, and he would look upwards. Wispy clouds under the twilight dark, under a faint light of stars. It was almost spring, then, cold enough to make him shiver after the heat of House's apartment, but tinging to warm. Promising. He could imagine that tomorrow there will be leaves on the trees, and next week the flowers in the grocery store will be fresh, tulips and crocuses. A week after that and there will be windows left open, House's neighbours pouring their canned music into the street, their kids riding bikes through leftover puddles.

Wilson thinks of spring and James thinks of leaving. One step, to the sidewalk. A dozen more while he opens his phone and calls for a cab. A hundred steps after that, and he disappears.

His brother left in spring.

James stands on the edge of the step and thinks, _I could_. Wilson smiles faintly and looks back over his shoulder, to the yellow-warm light of House's living room, and thinks, _I won't_.

When he goes back inside, House is softer than when he left. He's reading a medical journal instead of playing his Gameboy, or he's watching his hands drift across the piano keys instead of letting the television blare. His fingers linger over a nocturne. He doesn't look up, but he frowns a bit at the sheet music he doesn't need.

Wilson doesn't have to say, _Not yet_.

James always thinks, _Someday_.

* * *

v._ "Yeah," Matt said. "Thanks."_

Wilson watches the sun set over the rim of the world, until the lava-bright curve behind them fades and winks out. Italy fades.

He falls asleep when the cabin lights dim, his temple pressed to the plexiglass. They're over the Atlantic now, five thousand feet below and restless.

Wilson lingers over coffee in the Piccolo Café, sitting just under the awning, looking out over the broad paved plaza as the lamps are lit. A motorcycle headlight sweeps over him as the rider swerves to a stop. He pulls off his helmet and turns quickly enough that he catches Wilson watching him. A moment later he's setting his helmet on Wilson's table, raising his eyebrows. There's nothing but mischief in his grin.

"_Trovato_," he says, entirely self-satisfied.

Wilson smiles, and shakes his head. "I know," he says. He never meant to hide forever. He never expected to be found.

"_Come ti chiami?_" he asks, frowning slightly, as if he suspects Wilson is keeping secrets from him.

"James," Wilson says. "Call me James."

He nods, eyes intent, as if he'll learn more if he stares long enough. "James," he says--it sounds so strange coming from him, hesitant and unsure. He drops his gaze when he says, "_Sai quello che vuoi?_"

"Yes," Wilson murmurs, before he's entirely awake. "House."

His back and neck are on fire. He winces and grunts as he tries to move, but he's so stiff he can barely raise his head. He blinks sleep out of his eyes, until he understands what he's seeing through the small porthole window. The New Jersey roads are coming up beneath him, ready to take him home. He thinks he's finally ready to go.

While he still remembers the dream, Wilson knows what he wants.

* * *

vi._ From the moment of my birth, I have never been without it._

It's midmorning when Wilson finds himself in the hospital, his baggage in tow. He avoids the looks that one or two of the staff shoot at him, and takes the elevator to the fourth floor. He unlocks his office and sighs when he opens the door. He leaves his suitcase under the coat rack and stretches, one hand pressed to the small of his back, the other massaging away the stubborn knot at the juncture of his shoulder and neck. He's exhausted. The world's painted with the vague fuzziness of jet lag, but he doesn't have anywhere to go. After Julie left, there was House's place, and then Grace's until they left for Italy. He'll have to find somewhere new. He's tired of hotels, of transitory rooms that aren't his.

Wilson rubs at his eyes and tries to blink his office back into focus. Nothing's changed here. The room feels bare, though. Emptier. There's no dust on his desk or his shelves. Of course the cleaners have their own keys. The absence, though, feels deeper than that. All of Wilson's trophies are in their proper places, all his degrees hang at ninety degrees. His desk chair still has the same settings as when he left; no long-legged someone has been using it to recline in, feet up on the blotter. The balcony door-stop sits just inside the threshold, where it would have been pushed aside if House had come scaling over the wall to break in. Wilson sits down on the couch, still trying to knuckle wakefulness into his eyes. After a month away, the stillness in his office seems to be made entirely of House's absence, instead of his own.

He buries his face in both hands and groans. He lets himself fall to his side, then rolls over to lie on his back, one elbow thrown over his face to block the light. It's five in the evening in Florence. He feels like it's deep night.

_Heartsick_. The taste of the word comes back to him, and follows after him into sleep.

He jerks awake some time later, bewildered, gasping.

"You're back," House says, pulling the balcony door shut, limping across to lean on Wilson's desk.

"House..." Wilson feels like his heart has stopped, like he's drowning. He tries to sit up, rubbing his face, feeling the cushion crease across one cheek. "What time is it?"

House ignores the question. "Almost didn't believe it at first," he says. "But gossip in this hospital travels faster than a divorcé trying to get out of town. Or a doctor on the lam."

Wilson reaches for his watch. Two in the afternoon, and he's still exhausted. "House. Please." This isn't how their first conversation's supposed to go. He needs to be awake, for one. House is trying too damn hard not to show anything, but there's fury under his skin, simmering. Wilson wonders what he left Cuddy in for, and House's team.

"Thought you could sneak back and no one would notice?" House glares at him, his best interrogating stare. He doesn't seem to notice how tightly he's gripping his cane, until it seems like a weapon in his hand.

Wilson stares back, anger starting somewhere deep in his chest. He tips his head back and says evenly, "I didn't sneak."

House snorts in disbelief. "Tell anyone you were here? Happen to mention to Cuddy that she's got her head of Oncology back?"

The anger is there, within reach, but Wilson knows it drives House frantic when he's the calm one, when he doesn't react. "I haven't seen her yet," he says. "My leave isn't--"

"Maybe that'd be the same conversation when you told her you were sleeping with one of your patients," House interrupts. "That you left her hanging because you had to go and find yourself in fucking Florence."

"That's not why I went," Wilson snaps. He's too tired to keep control. House won't tell Cuddy about Grace--he thinks. He hopes. Fuck.

House sneers. "Don't tell me it's because you fell in love," he says. "I might have to stage an intervention."

"Yeah, House," Wilson says flatly, staring up at him. "It was because I fell in love."

House's eyes widen a fraction, and then he looks away, dropping his chin as if he's protecting himself from a punch. Wilson shakes his head and laughs shortly. He leans forward, dropping his head into his hands. He feels like he's run a mile, can't get his breath. He didn't mean to say it, but God, it's ridiculous what House drives him to.

It's an eternity before House shifts his weight off the desk and on to his cane. He leaves by the hallway door.

Wilson breathes for what feels like the first time. He wanted to find out if he recognized himself, without the weight of House's presence. He wanted to know what was left of himself, underneath.

Now he knows. Maybe it took three thousand miles of ocean to figure out what he knew all along.

* * *

vii._ You were supposed to put it on a rock._

In the end, where the hell is he supposed to go?

Wilson leans forward and pays the cabbie, manhandling his suitcase out of the trunk himself. He looks up at House's building and sighs. House's key is still on his ring, but Wilson takes a seat on the front step like he did the day House hung his stethoscope on the door. It's really spring now, the sun enough to make him sweat. He leans back against the warm brick and closes his eyes against the light. House isn't home. Wilson left his car in his designated spot in the hospital parkade, not wanting to park out front, knowing House would see it when he got home. The perfect excuse to avoid him.

He could use a few avoidance tactics himself. He's never met anyone who can be as stubborn as House is about choosing not to know what he'd rather not. It was weeks before he admitted Stacy had left him. He still doesn't accept that Esther died before he figured out what she had. He's still probably refusing to think about why he's so angry that Wilson chose to go to Florence. That, in that moment, Wilson chose Grace.

That must be what he's thinking, even if Wilson all but admitted it had nothing to do with her; nothing, even, to do with himself. It should suit House just fine that this is all because of him. The one time it is, though, probably he'll want to deny Wilson said anything at all.

So now Wilson has to be twice as stubborn. He has to hold on even harder than House tries to shake him loose. Wilson squints at the sun and stands up, brushing dust from his pants. He balances on the edge of the step and looks up and down the street. There's no one there, but it's a comfortable habit. One day, he thinks, there might be someone looking back. He smiles, and unlocks House's front door.

Everything familiar hits him as he steps inside. This was the feeling he missed in his office, or even when he first stepped into the airport terminal and he could understand the conversations going on around him. In Florence, he was in free fall. Now, at last: he's home.

When House comes in a few hours later, he pokes warily at Wilson's suitcase with his cane before looking up. Wilson's standing in the middle of the living room, his hair still damp at the back of his neck and over his ears from the shower. He ignores House's entrance and heads for the kitchen. The shepherd's pie that he managed to cobble together with House's leftover vegetables and some ground beef is almost ready to come out of the oven. He serves himself a plateful and leaves the rest on the counter, and goes back to the couch. House watches him until he's got the remote in one hand and his fork in the other before he moves from the door, hanging up his jacket and heading down the hall.

Wilson forces himself to keep eating, to pay attention to whatever's been saved on House's TiVo for the last month. It's too easy to listen to House's steps, from bedroom to bathroom, and after the water runs, to the kitchen. Then, he limps into the living room, balancing a plate and two beers precariously in his free hand.

He sits down heavily. Wilson glances at him cautiously, and House meets his eyes for a moment. After a round of silent hostage negotiation, Wilson trades the remote for one of House's beers. They turn back to the TV in unison, and Wilson quietly lets out the breath he was holding.

Pushing House is the last way to make him go the direction you want, so Wilson settles in to watch television. There's some part of him that wants to speak out in the middle of the show--probably neither of them could say what's on. Turn, slightly, so he can see House's face, and say, _I did it, you know. I slept with her. Broke my own ethics because I needed someone that badly._

It hurts to know that about himself. It hurts that he's come back and if he doesn't do something--if he doesn't _make_ something happen--then nothing will. Same Wilson, same routine, and Florence will be nothing but a pathetic mid-life crisis, and he'll forget Grace because others will come after her, instead of remembering her because of what she offered him: a chance to change.

At midnight, he's just getting his second wind after spending so much of the day napping, but that's when House pushes himself to his feet with a grunt and heads for his bedroom. They've barely said five words to each other all night, but Wilson's surprised that it's been this easy. House hasn't even made the motions of kicking him out. Status quo. Wilson sighs and finds _Murder, My Sweet_ on the classic movie network, already half over, but it's something to stare at while he wishes he could sleep.

Maybe he dozes. It's later, still and dark, when he wakes up lightly, feeling alert and rested. There's a creak of floorboards behind him. Wilson turns and looks over the back of the couch. House, looking sleep-roughened and more grizzled than ever, looks at him flatly and crosses to sit at the piano. He's wearing wash-thin pyjama pants and a t-shirt so old that the cotton clings softly to his chest and stomach. Wilson licks his lips and turns down the volume on the TV, notch by notch, until he can hear House depressing the keys, slowly enough that the notes don't sound. He's waiting for House to play, but House seems to be waiting for something else, a sign, or a breath. When Wilson twists and looks at him, he seems to be staring right through his fingers, through the piano. Absent, thoughtful. The way he gets when he's almost solved the puzzle.

_Heartsick_, Wilson thinks, again. It's a word House would never use, but it fits the hour and his mood. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks. It's not his leg, for once. He's barefoot and limping without the cane. Wilson gets up and moves to House's side.

House takes his hands off the keys. Wilson can see his face in profile, the way he's looking halfway into nothing. He ducks his head once more and frowns at the keys, and finally looks up. "Google Maps can't calculate directions between Princeton and Florence," he snaps, as if Wilson should fix that bug soonest.

Wilson grins softly. "Google Maps gives driving directions, House."

House rolls his eyes and stands up. They're nearly chest to chest now. "I know," House says dismissively, and seems about to push past him, to leave; but, at the last moment, he hesitates.

Wilson remembers hearing someone ask: _Sai chello che vuoi,_ James? _Sai che cosa desideri?_

He answers, "I want this," before he rests his palms low on House's hips, and kisses him.

* * *

viii. _\--_

It's too early for dawn, and the living room is filled with shadows.

There can be nothing here. Wilson knows that. He's learned his lesson about promises, and he's certain House won't offer any. Still he fills his hands with body-warm cotton, with the skin and muscle underneath. He presses House back, to the piano, and, head tilted, kisses him deeper, marking soft warm questions with his tongue. He starts soft but it turns sharper first with House's interest and then his amusement. Wilson wants to ask, "What?" because he can feel House's smirk against his lips, he can see it in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Then House is answering him, with guesses close enough to be knowledge: one hand, broad and warm, cupping the base of Wilson's skull; his mouth hard and unyielding, his kiss contentious, his body demanding. He pulls Wilson in, and Wilson stumbles trying not to land against his leg.

There's nothing here but them, because Wilson's heart is pounding too hard, his breathing's too harsh. _I want this_. There's too much freedom in that thought; there can't be anything else.

House's eyes are storm-grey in the dark. "Is this what they teach the tourists in Italy?" he asks. "Pin your wallet to your underwear and kiss the boys?"

Wilson smiles and answers simply, "I came back."

_For the past few months, the world's been getting smaller_, Grace told him once. _But maybe there is still a horizon out there._

There is. Wilson follows its line, lifting House's t-shirt, hooking a finger into the waistband of his pyjama pants and slipping them off his hips, until he can see everything. He strips away his own shirt and pants easily. They've made it to the bedroom by then, and House pulls him into another kiss. Skin to skin, Wilson pushing now until the bed's under them, House grinning beneath him before he turns over.

Wilson knows what he wants. He straddles the small of House's back, and traces his travels where House's muscles knot and his spine twists from using the cane day in and day out. He digs his thumbs in, deep under his shoulder blades down to where his waist narrows, to the first curve of his ass. House groans reluctantly as Wilson works away the tension. His chest deepens as he breathes in, shudders as he relaxes. This is touching, and it's better than touching, warmer, meaning more. Minutes or hours later, House is arching up to meet Wilson's hands and then pushing his hips back to the mattress, working himself slowly against the sheets. Wilson moans when House lifts up into his erection. He reaches down to stroke himself, one hand on House's ass, his fingers working lower.

Halfway around the world, he was as close to House as this: the hot weight of his body, his stomach tensing as he tries not to lean down too heavily. He presses his mouth against House's shoulder, to the back of his neck. Still playing with his fingers, wanting more. "Yeah?" he asks, and House jerks out a nod.

He hates having to get up, even to grab condoms and lube. House hasn't moved when he gets back, and Wilson takes a moment to appreciate the sight of him, spread across his rumpled bed, head resting on his forearms, all legs and lanky body, even his scar hidden as he lies on his front. He turns his head and looks at Wilson with one bright eye.

It doesn't take long, after that. Wilson's shaking, on the edge of his control, and by the time he slides in and starts thrusting, House is shaking too. There's nothing here but this, sweat running between them and the short, quick groans House makes when Wilson shoves deeper.

There's nothing here but this, and Wilson's coming, feeling House all around him, everywhere. Stroke, and stroke again. House grabs at his hand and brings it to his cock, and Wilson barely touches him before he's coming too, sprawling and shaky and messy.

It's nearly morning, now. Wilson pulls back a bit, and House hums deep in his chest and shrugs him off. Wilson gets rid of the condom, but he's too tired to worry about more than that. House is already asleep. Wilson pushes in next to him, closer than ever before, because there's nothing here to keep them apart.

* * *

ix. _I was fatalistic; I thought that it would work or it wouldn't, and there was very little I could do about it._

Wilson wakes up with the sun full on his face. When he opens his eyes, he's looking at House's bare back as he sits on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched, hands pressed to his thigh.

"House?" he asks. "Your leg?"

"Since I don't recall having any other part of my body being gouged out with rusty scalpels--"

Wilson rolls his eyes. "Is it worse than usual?" he clarifies.

"Some," House admits grudgingly. "Might have something to do with some great lump lying on me last night."

Wilson grins. "Don't remember you complaining at the time."

"I was saving it up. Makes for a more awkward morning after."

"Hmm," Wilson says, letting the smile into his voice. "So I should be doing the walk of shame about now."

"If you haven't had enough practice sneaking out yet." House still has his back turned, but Wilson sees his muscles tense.

He sits up, brushing one hand down House's back. If he wants help, he'll let Wilson know, probably in the most obnoxious way possible. "Too bad," Wilson says. "I've decided to stay."

* * *

x._ A surprise, as they say._

When Wilson thinks of Grace, he thinks of Florence: of high cathedral arches with their flying buttresses, and light turned blue-gold through stained glass windows; of canvasses that took up entire walls, until he had to crane his neck back to take them in. He thinks of sun on limestone, so blinding white that he felt he could disappear into it.

He remembers Grace's face, the awe that filled her, the way she turned to him with joy in her eyes and said, "I'm so glad you're here with me, James."

"I'm glad, too," he told her, smiling gently because of her smile.

And in the hospice, when she died, James whispered _I love you_ into the empty room. It was never a lie.

In the end, it was Grace who gave him House: it was Grace who brought him home. And when Wilson closes his eyes and thinks of Italy, he thinks of leaving it behind.

Florence was so beautiful it hurt, and Wilson's so goddamn glad he didn't take pictures.

_end_


End file.
